


One day apart

by brieflygorgeous



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Idols, Canon Compliant, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Felix is a sweetheart, First Kiss, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Mutual Pining, Sort Of, edgy teenager Jisung, it's about the YEARNING!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:14:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26432479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brieflygorgeous/pseuds/brieflygorgeous
Summary: “Hey, Felix.”“Hm?”“Remember when we first met?”Jisung reminisces his trainee days, the day he met Felix and his feelings for him.
Relationships: Han Jisung | Han/Lee Felix
Comments: 20
Kudos: 112





	One day apart

**Author's Note:**

> HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE TWINS!!!!!!! They grow up so fast [sniffs]
> 
> This is a very short and self indulgent fic I wrote in two days, based on some of the things jilix talked about in their two kids room episode. It's supposed to be canon compliant about their past but I'm pretty sure this is canon divergent from their present lol not only because ofc there is no romantic relationship between them but also they prob spent the night either practicing or celebrating all eight of them
> 
> Anyways, I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> Viv, this is for you <3 SUFFER!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Three in the morning has long been the loudest hour in Jisung's life. Creativity often struck at odd moments, and the late night ones were always ready to release the thoughts that wouldn’t keep still in his head. Back during trainee days, three in the morning was also a weird milestone for girls and boys alike to measure their dedication to training after hours to the point of exhaustion. Common hardships eased companionship, as did the cheap instant ramyun they would all share at the twenty four hour convenience store across the street, where they'd lounge and chit chat, still wide eyed at the dreams just within their reach, until sunrise brought a lukewarm sense of accomplishment.

Back to the cramped dorm Jisung shared with some other five to eight boys, all with the same skinny build and cracking voices from yet unbloomed adulthood, it was the promise of stardom that kept them hung up on the same routine, day after day. Three in the morning was a bonding experience for them: no reality was harsh enough to their sore muscles and empty stomachs as long as they didn’t struggle on their own.

But one by one, they all left. 

Some had the luck to debut, be it at the same or at different agencies, to varying levels of success—and those who failed to keep themselves relevant seemed to take double the bad luck when their names suddenly vanished from the public interest. Some returned to hometowns and home countries where mundane lives still waited to be picked up where they were left, and parents guided their children back inside with relief at them having finally woken up from years of sleepwalking in foreign land.

And yet newcomers never stopped popping up to fill up the available bunkers before Jisung even had the chance to learn the names of its previous owners. After a while, it made no sense to care about such trivial things such as friendship anymore. If debuting was a race, Jisung would make it to the finish line. Even if he was the only one to do it.

"Ah, Jisung. Welcome home."

The dorm is dark and silent save for the lights still on at the kitchen, where Felix leans against the counter playing on his phone. The sink is a mess of dirty cooking utensils and crumpled paper packages, and Felix too looks a little caught in the headlights. Hair softly disheveled and eyes swollen from either too much or too little sleep, he’s an unusual sight at this hour.

“Anxious cooking?”

Jisung places the convenience store bag on the dining table before he goes fetch the kettle. There are enough ramyun packets in the cabinets to feed the eight of them for a month, but something about this night made Jisung go out of his way after leaving the studio and visit the old convenience store he hasn’t been to since predebut days. Perhaps it’s the nerves of their upcoming comeback that reels him back into a sort of bittersweet nostalgia.

“You could say,” Felix shrugs, busying himself with cleaning the mini culinary warfare he’s caused. “What about you? Isn’t that the ramyun we used to eat after dance practice back in the days? I thought you said you had grown tired of that flavor.”

Jisung hums vaguely, slurping the familiar taste of his early teenagehood in chewy, noodle shape. The silence between them is comfortable in a way the Jisung from almost four years ago would never admit. With his eyes closed, he can almost watch their memories playing behind his eyelids with the same sharpness as when it all first happened.

“Hey, Felix.”

“Hm?”

“Remember when we first met?”

February used to be both the most anticipated and the most dreaded month for the trainees, but the already nerveracking showcase evaluation had an additional expectation in 2017. Rumors about a possible new group being formed with the best performing male trainees started spreading around. Chan was the favorite candidate of 3RACHA, and the one whose accumulated training years burdened him to perfection. Changbin and Jisung could only hope to not let him down and guarantee that the three of them stayed together.

The day before the showcase, a new boy arrived at the dorm.

With all the last minute preparations for their stage, there had been no time for more than a couple short, brisk introductions. There would be time later for all these meaningless pleasantries, and even if there wasn’t, Jisung wasn’t going to lament not knowing another nobody. Felix was just one more trainee whose bright attitude was bound to annoy Jisung.

He didn’t speak a word of Korean, worst of all—but that didn’t seem to stop him from tagging along with them. Chan grew a soft spot for Felix almost instantly, and that had stung Jisung in more ways than one back then.

Jisung remembers Felix sat in the front row at the showcase, watching presentation after presentation with unashamed awe. When it was time for 3RACHA he was there as well, though that particular memory was less vivid than the others. Jisung’s nerves had been too overwhelmed by the performance to pay attention to anything but his own self. Chan and Changbin were counting on him. He wouldn’t let them down. He couldn’t bear to see them go away too.

Their evaluation had been sufficient, but nothing beyond expectations. Of course their teachers and the boss wouldn’t just announce their plans that publicly without any cameras around. There was no need for any sort of delusion of the kind. Stark silent, Jisung stepped out of stage with more fear than he had when he stepped in.

The following day was Lunar New Year, and it would be the first time Jisung had the chance to go back to Malaysia to spend it with his family ever since he came to South Korea. Chan’s best efforts at comforting him only hurt Jisung worse, as he knew that unending kindness was always directed outwards and rarely to Chan himself. Jisung packed his things with the heaviest heart he had felt in a while. He was leaving Chan behind—for a week at most, but still leaving.

Snowflakes freckled the road with frozen teardrops Jisung crushed under his boots all the way to the bus stop. Perhaps there was only himself to blame for the frustration that slowed down his steps, and his own immature stubborness for not knowing any better. Was this how every single one of his old friends felt the day they felt too crushed by their own dreams that they had no other option but to let go of them? Chan had been so brave to stay all of those years.

But was Jisung that brave too?

_“Wait!”_

He had been caught offguard, he knows now. In normal circumstances he wouldn’t have thought twice before ignoring that voice and following whatever gloomy path his feet were taking him to on that day.

They weren’t friends. And had Jisung never doubted himself in that moment, they wouldn’t have been anything at all. But there was a mutual urgency between them, Jisung would later find out, and it was that crucial but thin thread of hope that had made him turn around to face him.

Felix was breathless and sweating despite the cold of winter, but neither that nor the weird stares he was getting from passersby could eclipse his radiant smile. The years would never wear off the tenderness of Felix’s soul, and even back then, unaware as he was, Jisung knew something had shifted in his heart, forever.

_“Wait, I have something I need to give you.”_

Jisung’s English had become rusted from the last couple of years living in Seoul, and his mood was too sour to indulge in whatever Felix’s nonsense was. Still, his tongue moved almost on its own accord, and the words came off with less bite than usual.

_“Now? I’m going back home to see my family. You can give me when I come back.”_

_“Please, I really need to give it to you now.”_

Jisung couldn’t help but wonder just how insane Felix had to be to give a gift to someone he had only known for the past three days, but he took the plastic bag Felix handed him. Jisung’s chest had filled with something he would spend many nights mulling over after that, unable to catch sleep knowing Felix laid on the bed just across the room, barely out of reach.

_“A cake?!”_

_“Before you go,”_ Felix had tripped on his own words from how bad he wanted to speak, mindless if Jisung was actually able to grasp everything he said. _“I just wanted to tell you how cool you looked yesterday. Seriously, you have everything. Rapping, dancing, singing, and all that charisma. You inspire me so much, I want to be on stage with you someday, Peter.”_

“When you had your hair dyed red?” Felix asks now in full, perfect Korean, crouched in front of the oven with his eyes fixed on whatever is baking inside.

“Yeah, when you stopped me with that cake.”

Felix makes a sound of embarrassment, something between a snort and a whine. His side profile only shows the red tip of one ear, but it’s visible that Felix is blushing all over from how his freckles suddenly stand out.

“Sometimes I still feel bad that I made you stay like that.”

“I wanted to stay.”

It’s that line that makes Felix finally look at him, and what Jisung sees is fear. A guarded, intimate sort of fear that is often confided to pillows and showers alone, overwhelmed as they all were by the many mishaps along the way to debut. Even now, sometimes that same fear still creeps between them as a group, but the years have brought them closer than they could have ever had imagined before.

Somewhere in Jisung’s heart, there is a voice that reminds him that there are still distances they haven’t crossed, him and Felix.

“Did you?” Felix asks again, relief and something else making his lips quiver in an uncertain smile. “I thought you didn’t like me, in the beginning.”

“Well, I didn’t like _anyone_ in the beginning,” Jisung admits with a shrug. “Much less Hyunjin, for that matter.”

Felix’s whole face suddenly melts into a fond smile. Jisung’s heart aches like the first time he realized how dumbstruck that smile left him, just like that winter day years ago, when all of Felix’s words had unknowingly guided Jisung back to who he was. _Jisung,_ was the only thing he could think of replying then. _Don’t call me Peter. Call me Jisung._

“It’s crazy how far we’ve come from that all, don’t you think?”

Felix trades the oven for the table where Jisung is still fishing the tiniest bits of ramyun with his chopsticks. Sat across from him, Felix acts almost too polite with how his hands are placed close to his body and away from Jisung. It’s Jisung who crosses the line they had somehow found along the years, claiming Felix’s hand with his own before anyone can shame them for the affection they can’t name.

Felix smiles to himself as their fingers make a perfect fit and it almost, almost tempts Jisung to do something stupid.

“I hope we can all stay together for a long, long time.”

Before Jisung can feel brave enough to lean over the table and confess all of the things going through his head, Felix’s phone rings with an alarm far too loud for the ungodly hour it is. He scrambles to turn it off before anyone comes out of their room and beheads them.

“Guess it’s ready, then.”

“What is?”

“Well…”

Felix slides on a pair of mitts before he takes the baking tray off the oven. The red on his cheeks only grows stronger as Jisung realizes just what he’s spent three in the fucking morning doing at the kitchen.

“You baked me a cheesecake?!”

“It was supposed to be a birthday surprise,” Felix confesses. “But you came home earlier than I expected and—”

“Put that down.”

“Uh...?”

“I said put that _down._ ”

Despite the precautions, Jisung still nearly knocks over his own birthday present with how fast he grabs the front of Felix’s shirt to kiss him. Their lips are uncoordinated at best, and greasy from Jisung’s ramyun breath, but the minute Felix giggles against his mouth Jisung knows it’s one less regret on the list of things he should have done before.

It’s Felix who guides the kiss to something more coherent than Jisung’s eagerness allows him to, with all of his clashing teeth and roaming hands and the underlying desire to make up for all of the years he kept these feelings to himself.

"Gross," Felix snorts when they part, barely a breath away from each other. He thumbs over Jisung's spit slick lower lip and Jisung almost gives in to the thought of biting it, just to see where that would lead them. “You taste like spicy chicken ramyun.”

"Should I have waited for the cheesecake to cool so I tasted like it instead?"

"You should have kissed me way earlier. Or _I_ should have kissed you."

Jisung wonders if Felix's silence means he's remembering the same things. The many nights they escaped to the rooftop of the dorm building to share the stars and stories of their own childhoods, having somewhat met halfway. The small coincidences that connected them and brought them to this world together, barely one day apart from each other. 

Sometimes Jisung wonders where they would have been today had Felix arrived a day later back in 2017, had he never watched the showcase nor stopped Jisung from going back to Malaysia.

Felix makes a soft humming sound, searching for Jisung’s eyes. He must have been thinking half of that out loud.

"One day apart," Jisung explains. "I was just thinking about it. How we've always been just one day apart from each other."

"Well, we don't need to be apart anymore." Felix leans in to kiss him again, and Jisung can feel the exact shape of his smile when their lips meet. “Happy birthday, soulmate.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


("Write something nice on the cheesecake, like _Jisung is hot_ or _I want to be like Jisung_."

"I'm gonna write _Jisung spicy chicken ramyun lips._ "

"Hey!!"

"Love you, soulmate~")

**Author's Note:**

> kudos and comments are much appreciated! thanks for reading <3
> 
> you can find me on twitter and cc @hyeonlix


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